Troublemaker
by Zentauria
Summary: [Pro-bending Circuit - Round 5] Stuck in a time loop and forced to relive his day in the Dai Li's military compound over and over again, Kai decides to make the best of it. Nothing he does has consequences, and it's payback time! If only it wasn't so very draining...


**Pro-bending Circuit | Round 5 - Time Loop**

 **And more Kai. Because I'm still running on NowMoreThanEveroleum.**

 **Team/Position: Laogai Lion Vultures / Firebender**

 **Bonus prompt: (easy) table**

 **Word count: 3493**

* * *

If Kai knows one thing, it's that he and the Dai Li instructor are never going to be friends. He's been through and gotten used to a lot – the sneers, the shouting, the running, the disinterest, the occasional backhanded 'kindness.' But a punishment for basic human decency? Now _that's_ new.

Getting thrown into the aptly named Hole isn't too bad. Cold, depressing, but generally bearable. Turns out to be a good thing, too, apart from the heart attack. Had Jinora appeared in the middle of the gym or whatever that cave might be called, the Dai Li would have been warned. Still kind of regrettable that he didn't get a chance to pay them back, though. If everything goes smoothly, he won't see them again. Nothing to do but curl up and wait.

* * *

"Get up, boy!"

Startled, Kai jumps off his cot and joins the other airbenders. It's not that he's a particularly heavy sleeper, never been and probably never will. He woke at the first call. It's processing his surroundings that makes him slow to act – he's pretty sure he shouldn't be back in the airbenders' quarters.

"What's going on?" he whispers to Yung. The man gives him a look of sympathy and sighs.

"Nothing a child should be involved in. They're going to train us..."

"For the Earth Queen's army, yeah, yeah. It's not like I missed that speech yesterday. I want to know how I'm here. Last time I checked, I've been stuck in solitary, and I would have noticed if someone carried me back here. And what about the Avatar? Jinora said they'd mount a rescue."

A funny expression crosses Yung's face. "What are you talking about? You've been with us all night."

"Silence!" the Dai Li instructor barks, discouraging further conversation. He turns around and walks out the door, trailed by a squadron of airbenders. Kai allows the crowd to sweep him along, by now thoroughly confused. Something is obviously wrong, but he can't pin it down.

Maybe it's part of his punishment, but Kai can't imagine the Dai Li going out of their way to sedate him (really, he _would_ have woken if moved from his cell) and order Yung to misinterpret his questions. Kai knows he's not worth the trouble.

They arrive at the gym. Kai is once again paired with Yung, then the Dai Li sergeant launches into exactly the same speech he gave the day before. Kai waits, arms folded in mute fury and impatiently counting the words.

 _You are the property of the Earth Kingdom._

Yeah, right.

 _You'll become the Earth Queen's elite fighting force and protect her at all cost._

Uh-huh, and what does that guy dream of during the night? Kai might have _just_ done that - wouldn't be the first time he'd protect a random person. But after being made a slave, he's leaning towards walking away.

 _It is your duty to serve the Earth Queen._

And the Earth Queen's duty is serving her people. If she doesn't care, why should Kai?

Finally they get the order to spar, and Kai quickly realizes that Yung's punches are the same as yesterday. He's about to tell his friend about adding some variety when he sees Yung's defensive stance, the very one he thought the Dai Li had beaten out of him the day before.

"Go easy on me," Yung pleads. "I'm not that good."

What in the name of Oma and Shu...?

A sneaking suspicion takes hold of Kai's mind. It makes absolutely no sense at all, but...

Kai decides to put his theory to the test. There's nothing else to do, anyway.

He creates a gentle breeze for Yung to dodge, and the instructor appears at his side. "Never show mercy! Now attack your opponent, and this time like you mean it!"

Well, what do you know? They definitely had this conversation before, but Kai is not going to give in this time.

"No!"

The instructor narrows his eyes dangerously. "You will attack. Now!"

Kai sends a sidelong glance at Yung, who seems worried and cowed. But he apparently finds some strength within himself and straightens, though his voice still trembles when he says, "It's okay, kid."

"No, it's not!" Kai turns back to glower at the Dai Li agent. "Guess what? Air is the element of freedom! If the Earth Queen wants our loyalty, I recommend she stops treating us like slaves!"

By now the whole gym is staring. Kai knows he's not going to win this, but the outburst certainly felt good. And the look on the instructor's face is _priceless_.

"Shut your insolent mouth, brat!"

"Make me!" Kai challenges. The furious sergeant stomps his foot and the ground rises up to lock Kai in place.

"You'll learn respect!" he growls and waves at two other agents. "Throw him in the Hole!"

Nothing new there. The agitated gazes of his fellow airbenders accompany Kai as he's dragged off to the detention area. Even the collision with the bench hurts the same, knocking the wind out of his lungs. As he's left alone, way earlier than he was yesterday, he slumps into the wooden seat.

"Well," he sighs at the darkness. "That went great."

At least he still has Jinora's visit to look forward to. By now he's pretty sure he's repeating the day before, whyever that is. The air is freezing (not that it comes as a surprise), and Kai gets up to train a little and warm up. The cell is too narrow for the acrobatics he'd usually practice, but at least no one is going to bother him for the rest of the day.

He barely notices time passing until Jinora pops up mere inches from the foot he's just lifted into a kick. He quickly puts it down, hot blood shooting to his cheeks.

"Sorry!"

Jinora's spirit beam chuckles. "Good to see you're okay!"

Kai awkwardly rubs the back of his head. "As okay as can be when locked in a cell."

A look of concern crosses Spirit-Jinora's face. "Where are you?"

Kai shakes his head. That would definitely be a nice thing to find out. When Kai was captured, the Dai Li agent just sunk him into the ground, into a maze of tunnels where he quickly lost any sense of direction. He couldn't make so much as an educated guess. "No idea. Somewhere underground."

"Don't worry, I'll find out. We'll get you out of here!"

"Thank you, Jinora."

She smiles and... Hmm, can spirit beams blush?

Kai keeps grinning like an idiot as he watches Jinora disappear through the ceiling, then slaps himself for it. Stupid crush!

* * *

Kai emits a muffled groan into his pillow as he hears the wake-up call. His drowsy brain refuses to catch individual words, as it did two times before, but it's doubtlessly the same call.

"Not again..."

He doesn't talk to anyone this time. He follows the Dai Li agent who leads them through the stifling, dimly lit passages only half-heartedly, but the consequent property talk is enough to rile him up once again and give him back his energy.

Kai doesn't even wait for Yung. He attacks.

* * *

"Whoops... Didn't mean to stick my foot into you."

"It's okay! Where are you?"

"I don't know, but I'm sure you can find out."

"I will. Don't worry, we'll bust you out tonight!"

"Jinora? Would you... come back later? It's a little lonely in here..."

"Sure."

* * *

When Jinora notices him shivering, she teaches Kai to use his breathing to keep warm. It takes a lot of the Hole's discomfort away, and spending time with Jinora is a great cure for boredom. When Kai wakes up on his cot again, he grins.

Consequences don't matter anymore. He's been called a troublemaker numerous times, and he has a reputation to live up to!

When the instructor launches into his speech, Kai interrupts and recites it himself, paired with a very unflattering impersonation. The whole gym snickers and snorts, resulting in a group punishment during which the airbenders are forced to hold up a huge boulder. At first, Kai's conscience gnaws at him. As the smallest, he can't even reach the boulder, so the burning shoulders are all on his fellows in misery. Then it occurs to him that they won't remember anything the next day. Nothing they do today will have happened tomorrow.

Does anything happen at all?

He starts wondering when reality became so blurry.

* * *

The next few cycles are spent testing limits and training with Jinora. Going easy on Yung gets him a rebuke three times, the fourth time gets him locked up. Same with apologies. Sarcastic comments and other acts of disrespect get him locked up straight away.

And sometimes, they get him into horrible, horrible pain. One time, he steals the belt right off the sergeant's pants. But the thing about being locked in a gym is that there is no chance of giving anyone the slip, so he spends the rest of the day nursing a broken wrist. Jinora is shocked when she appears, and Kai is very impressed with the unexpected extent of her cuss word vocabulary. She even knows some curses he's never heard before, and that's saying something, considering that he grew up in the streets. After she calms down, however, they have a very nice chat.

* * *

Come the next cycle, Kai's wrist is back to normal, but he doesn't try stealing from the Dai Li again. Still it's not the last time Kai ends up too injured to train, and it turns out he can talk about the craziest things. The fact that Jinora won't remember anything encourages him to share his weirdest experiences, his darkest thoughts. Not once does she turn her back. Instead, she returns the favor.

Kai finds himself moving past the blushing and the stuttering. Jinora is even more amazing than he thought, and there is no reason to be embarrassed in front of her. At some point, it hits him that he's past his crush, too. His feelings have become more profound than that.

It's grating to know that Jinora can't reach the same stage, even if she was so inclined.

* * *

As time passes, Kai's knowledge of airbending forms grows immensely. He has soon mastered three of the 36 tiers of airbending, yet his power is capped. The constant reset of his body denies him muscle memory, his movements remain deliberate, too slow for his standards. An exercise of the mind he can't leave to his reflexes.

However, he's still faster than the Dai Li agents can ever hope to be. Airbending – the real airbending Jinora teaches, not the air-shaped earthbending that the sergeant tries to beat into him – may not be particularly useful for offensive fighting, but it really does improve the entertainment value of playing tag with the instructor.

* * *

An interesting change occurs when pretending to be an absolute failure at airbending keeps Kai off the radar and out of the Hole. So when Jinora pops up in the middle of the gym, some quick thinking on Kai's part, as well as Jinora's willingness to play along, turns her into Jino, the spirit of rightful fury and protector of child slaves. The sergeant is not impressed, but one of the more superstitious agents is quick to set Kai free.

Jinora comes in person to pick him up from the Earth Queen's temple, beaming with happiness. She throws her arms around him and kisses his cheek, and Kai needs to summon every ounce of self-control to keep from launching into a furious make-out session. It's quite a struggle to get rid of the tunnel vision and acknowledge the rest of Team Avatar. He apologizes for everything he did before his capture, even though he finds his memory sadly lacking by now. Mako is still angry. Tenzin is still suspicious. But Bolin hugs him, and Korra hugs him, Asami smiles, and Jinora holds his hand.

Kai realizes how much he missed them during those countless days.

* * *

Kai changes into one of Jinora's spare robes. The loose garment fits him quite well, and he is more than glad to finally slip out of the army uniform. When he returns to the foyer however, he stops dead in his tracks. Team Avatar is already seated around a huge table, plus a woman Kai doesn't know. They're ready to hold an emergency meeting, but the sight doesn't excite him. It should.

Instead, an overwhelming sense of hopelessness floods through his veins. Whatever he does, he ends up on his cot at the end of the day. Or rather, the beginning.

 _What's the point?_

"Kai!" Jinora calls and speeds toward him, but her enthusiasm fades when he fails to react. "Are you okay?"

He forces a smile. Maybe the loop ends this time, with him being out of the Dai Li's clutches and all. "Sure! What's the plan?"

First, Kai is introduced to the woman. Her name is Lin, and she's the chief of Republic City's police force. Another one of those things that should elicit more of a reaction than it does. The police is his natural enemy, but he can't find the energy to care.

He gets cozy on the table – Bumi's cue to cause general incredulity. Kai thought his nonsense with the Dai Li was off-the-rails, but the eldest member of their tea party cooks up a ridiculousness which is simply beyond comparison.

"What good is a badgermole that knows Morse code when none of us knows it?" Kai inquires. The rest of the group shoots him weird looks, and he supposes that he's the first one to discuss Bumi's plan instead of dismissing it outright. But Kai's still caught up in taking everything literally just for the heck of it – a sure-fire way to drive people insane. Except Bumi, that is.

"Good point. Jinora, Mako, Asami, you study up on Morse code in preparation for tonight!"

"What? No!" Mako protests. "We don't have a badgermole that knows Morse code!"

Kai nods sagely to himself. You can't drive people insane who already are insane.

"Hey kid!" Lin cuts in. "How are the other airbenders? Can we count on them in a fight?"

Kai crosses his arms, brows furrowed with concentration. It's a good question. Even though Kai has spent more time with his airbending comrades than he cares to calculate, it was always the same situation. He doesn't really know them. But he _does_ know he certainly didn't gain airbending abilities because he likes restraints so much.

"They'd fight," he decides, "but they're not very skilled. The Dai Li has no idea how airbending works, it's all trial and error." He absently holds his side at the memory. He caught about a gazillion earth disks this round. "And error hurts."

A couple eyes widen.

"You should have said something sooner," Korra stresses and gets out of her chair. "I'm a healer."

"And what an awesome healer!" Bolin adds, grinning broadly. Kai shrugs, he doesn't feel particularly sore. But Korra whips out some water anyway. Teapot water that glows blue, not the most comforting sight. But he lifts his robes anyway, granting the Avatar access to his ribs.

"Wow, you're worse than Bolin after a pro-bending round."

"Heard that!"

Korra smirks and completely passes over the comment. "What happened to the greased hog monkey I've been told about?"

Kai sighs. Part of him doesn't want to think about it, but the soothing of Korra's water overrides the anxiety. "The instructor kept ordering me to attack my sparring partner. I didn't want to hurt him, so I pretended that I'm such an awful elephant bull in a china shop that I can't even throw a straight punch. But it meant that I couldn't dodge either if I wanted to keep up the act."

Korra purses her lips thoughtfully, then she smiles and pokes Kai's chest. "I knew you have a good heart behind those sticky fingers of yours!"

The touched spot tingles. Korra's words sting more than they should, and Kai buries his face in his hands. He hasn't stolen anything in ages; he can't even remember how exactly he got Mako and Bolin's wallets between his fingers. And come to think about it... He took Bumi's wallet, too.

"Kai?" Jinora speaks up, coaxing him out of his hands and troubled thoughts. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," is the first thing Kai's mind supplies. Neither Korra nor Jinora look convinced. Even Bolin gets up from the sofa and walks over, Mako in tow.

"Is there something we should know?" the firebender demands, earning a glare from his brother.

Kai shakes his head. "You wouldn't believe it anyway."

"Try us!" Korra encourages. Kai looks around, taking in the concern on Jinora's face, Korra's confident grin, Mako's raised brow and Bolin's pleading eyes. After another second or two, Tenzin and Lin's twin frowns are added. So are Asami's folded arms. Kai gulps. No pressure...

"No pressure at all," Bumi's jokester voice cuts through the tension. "Give the kid some space, will ya? He has a whole afternoon. If it's important, I'm sure he'll share."

The group scatters reluctantly and Kai heaves a breath of relief. He turns to flash his stair-sitting savior a smile. "Thank you, Bumi."

"Don't mention it, kid." A crooked smirk appears on Bumi's face. "Us newbies need to stick together, right?"

The declaration makes Kai laugh. "Right!"

* * *

He uses the day for some sorely needed respite. To breathe fresh air, enjoy the warmth of the sun and a delicious meal. Being imprisoned in the dark, oppressive gloom of the underground compound for so long had been suffocating, and his numb spirit didn't even notice. Adding that to his newfound affection for the Avatar's group, it mounts up to an awful lot that Kai didn't notice.

He laughs with Bolin until his sides hurt. He chats with Asami. He borrows Korra's glider and impresses Tenzin with how quickly he learns to work it. A short flight with Jinora is the highlight of his day, and suddenly, he's dreading its rapidly approaching end. It's not just frustration anymore, it's a real, crushing horror.

 _He's going to lose all this._

When his feet touch the ground, he drops Korra's staff and scrambles up a lemon tree, ignoring Jinora's cries.

 _He's going to lose all this. What made him reject it in the first place?_

* * *

The creaking of wood startles Kai into looking around, and he catches sight of Korra swinging up the tree. "Awesome branch you got! Mind if we share?"

"Um..." Kai blinks perplexedly. "Be my guest?"

Korra grins and settles next to him. Her smile fades, and Kai realizes she conned him into an impossible position. There is more behind this than her desire for a charming view of the Upper Ring.

"So, what's up?" she smashes straight to the point. "This isn't you."

"You don't know me."

Korra's response consists of a perfectly executed roll of her eyes. "Don't give me this rubbish Kai, you can't pull a Mako without anyone noticing. You're chewing on something, and you obviously can't work through it yourself." Her gaze softens. "I can tell you're stuck, in more ways than one. Let me help you."

Kai sighs. "Did your Avatar senses tell you that?"

Korra tilts her head quizzically. "What?"

Apparently not. Kai rubs his temple tiredly and explains, "I _am_ stuck. Literally. This day... Today... It keeps repeating. I don't want to know how often I woke up this morning, checking off a list of items on an unchanging schedule. Wake up, comfort Yung, mess with the Dai Li, get thrown in a cell, pain optional, talk to Jinora, fall asleep in solitary and wake up with the others. Things went differently this time, but I don't believe it will change anything in the long run. I'll just wake up back in the compound tomorrow. Today, whatever. I'm sick of it. I want to stay with you guys."

To Kai's astonishment, a smile breaks out on Korra's face. "I had a feeling something was up. Seems like my Avatar senses didn't fail me after all." She chuckles. "Sometimes, the spirits use the strangest means to push us onto the right path. Now that you resolved to stay with us, the loop should be busted."

"You sure?"

Korra nods and a huge smirk spreads on her lips, spelling great big trouble. "I'm sure. Love is a powerful force."

"What the...?!" Kai sputters, and Korra's grin broadens even more (which, for all intents and purposes, should have been physically impossible).

"But I advise you to keep it T. You know, _Tenzin-rated_."

"Korra! _Shut up!_ "

* * *

 **Fifth and last round (for now).**

 **Man, it sure was an intense time! Can't wait for the results!**

 **I'll probably add another chapter to this. The word cap disregarded half the plot bunny population once again, and they'll keep annoying me until I type them out. But for now, I'll enjoy the two week break before the semi-finals and return to Weakling Blood. An update for that story is looong overdue!**


End file.
